AML 4213: Journeys to America
Spring 2012

EQUIANO

LEARNING ENHANCEMENT SITES:

Here, at the top of some of the lectures, will be a variety of outside videos. You are not responsible for them, but please click on the links, pictures, or icons for the perspectives the videos offer. This is an experimental feature of the course, to be integrated more thoroughly in future versions.

Click on picture for Wilberforce abolition speech.

Click on picture for rap video montage.

Click on picture for video on the Transatlantic slave trade.

You’re reading a sequence of memoirs—Rowlandson, Equiano, Ashbridge, and then Franklin. Rowlandson and Ashbridge are the closest in the sense of being spiritual autobiographies, but Ashbridge and Franklin are the closest in being about (very loosely) a flexible, self-created identity because of social/geographical mobility; Rowlandson, Equiano, and Ashbridge are all stories of bondage/captivity (again, loosely); and yet, finally, Equanio and Franklin, notwithstanding their major differences, are very close in being concerned with what could be called entrepreneurial self-hood, a self defined in terms of economics.

The Franklin lecture down-the-road will give a detailed account of the transition from the Puritan era to the 18^th century. For Equiano, just—notwithstanding all his religious sentiments—note how (necessarily!) he is preoccupied with status.

Now, note how the several forms or genres of Equiano's narrative might indicate tensions within it:

Literature and, more broadly, all forms of writing come in different genre forms--novel, short story, poem, epic poem, tragedy, etc.; memo, autobiography, business report, etc. Authors are not absolutely constrained by genres, but to some extent the genre will delimit what can be said. In an autobiography, for example, the author is supposed to tell the "truth" and not introduce fictional episodes. If we were to discover that an autobiography or memoir had episodes that were mainly fictional, it would be somewhat disturbing (you should reread the last sentence, as it will apply in an unexpected way to Equiano before you get to the end of this material; see the e-text link after you finish him).

Here are three genres that Equiano's narrative falls into, and you should note that they are not entirely compatible.

1) Captivity/slave narrative: Equiano’s is one of the first slave narratives (Frederick Douglass’s 1845 autobiography is the most famous one--and if you don't know who F. Douglass is, you should do a "Google" search right now). Slave narratives typically chart the path from bondage to liberty.

Equiano's text, however, complicates the story of bondage-to-freedom because slavery was not entirely alien to his homeland Igbo culture, and because, even after he "frees" himself, he continues to work, with a degree of devotion, to one of his former "masters."

2) Spiritual autobiography/ conversion narrative: Equiano’s is a spiritual narrative, too. He goes through what is called a "dark night" of the soul. And yet . . . hmmm . . . even as he seems theologically anguished, he often rebounds from his religious despair rather quickly. Also, the conversion narrative in some ways conflicts with the captivity narrative: Equiano becomes a captive of Western imperialists/slavers, and yet it is also, in spiritual terms, Western culture that liberates him. Apologists of slavery often made this argument: slaves are fortunate, the argument went, because they lose their heathen religion for Christian religion.

3) Ben Franklinesque story of a self-made man: Equiano, as did Franklin, rose through his own enterprise--witness the emergence of Homo-economicus! I've borrowed the latter whimsical term from another scholar, which denotes the 18th-century preoccupation with selfhood defined in terms of economic status. You will see, as you get into Equiano's autobiography, that status sometimes seems as important to him as liberty or spiritual salvation. Read the last sentence again, please.

Below are some open-ended review questions:

--What is Equiano's attitude towards his home village and tribal cultural in Chapter One? Does he maintain the same attitude towards African/tribal culture towards the end of his narrative, when he envisions bringing Africa into the circuit of the British economy? In Chapter One why does he switch between using "we" when he describes his home village and saying "they"? Keep in mind that in all autobiographies an autobiographer is the product of the entirety of his/her experiences even when writing about initial experiences: you should consider to what extent an "Europeanized" Equiano is constructing, for rhetorical purposes, an initial "naive" Equiano.

--What is his initial attitude towards his white captives and their culture (is he horrified or curious when he sees the woman being punished with an iron muzzle, near the beginning of Chapter Three?)?

--Does his attitude toward white culture change over time?

--Equiano is young when he is kidnapped; he's traumatized, but perhaps also seeks surrogate... white... parents?

--In Chapter Five, Equiano tells us that he "managed an estate, where ... the negroes were uncommonly cheerful and healthy..." Read this passage carefully. Does Equiano seem to be a "sell out" here?

--What do you think makes Equiano most happy? Why is he SO preoccupied with his new blue suit, which he envisions wearing to a dance ball, in Chapter Seven (six or seven pages in)? (Note his initial pride, conveyed in Chapter One, in his father's chief status.)

--What is the point of the episode in which Equiano and his captain go through the dead man's belongings/chest, in Chapter Seven (five or six pages in)?

--Does Equiano's effort to set up a "plantation" and concluding sentiments about colonizing Africa compromise your opinion of Equiano?

Now, to conclude--a more personal professor take on the suspicions raised by the “fabrication” issue (see the e-text):

Perhaps we can praise Equiano for his rhetoric and artistry in "creating" those opening chapters that many feel are graphic and moving. If he massages the "truth," maybe it just means that he is an effective political artist? In a way, to ramp this issue up even more, do we "enslave" Equiano to presenting "fact" and thereby disallow his artistic freedom? This happened to the famous Frederick Douglass, too. Before he wrote his great Narrative, he would be brought on stage by his white abolitionist "handlers" and asked to turn around and reveal the scars on his back. He wasn't at first expected to speak; only the truth of the scars was allowed. When he did speak, with force and eloquence, people in the audience would say: wait, he cannot have been a slave, no slaves can speak so well. Etc. In the first edition of Frederick Douglass's Narrative, white abolitionists preface his story; in the second edition, when Douglass is more his own man, he jettisons these prefaces ... and the book is entirely his, but also written in a much more literary style (some say too literary!).

Literary Theory Tip:

With Equiano, it is very tempting to go into what I call “celebration” mode: celebrating his endurance, practicality, adaptability, and plain inspiring ingenuity and energy. Would it not seem perverse to critique him (assuming you don’t really think he is a “sell out,” a somewhat knee-jerk stance!)?

Often when we read great literary works, we want to “like” the main character, and endorse his/her in some fashion. We don’t, after all, read literature to learn about dastardly/corrupt characters. We want our inspiration! Even when the main character is compromised in some serious way.

And yet: literary criticism is by and large a “hermeneutics of suspicion” (I’m borrowing that from somewhere): that is, interpretation (“hermeneutics”) often reads texts/characters against the grain. A good example of this is when Equiano so delights in wearing his “blue” suit. At first glance, he’s just being justly proud…. But poke the passage a bit, and you begin to get suspicious. Another example would be Caliban when he asks Prospero’s pardon (is he really being sincere, or just saying what Prospero and, indeed, the play needs him to say in his role of stupid servant?).

See such moments/passages as being “symptomatic”, as if the “text” has an issue it is trying to repress or cover up. Of course, this is not our habit when we just naturally sit down to read a book. But that is what it means to study literature in a professional context.